LP version. Akira Kosemura's In The Dark Woods combines the electronic and acoustic sounds of piano, Wurlitzer, and synthesizer with a string quartet, similar to the music heard on his previous improvisational solo piano work One Day from 2016. As indicated in the title, the entire album is filled with an obscure darkness and a world of misty sounds ever to be feared of, like a comfortable quietness in the dark where a child in the womb is hearing a mother's heartbeat. As the music goes on, it gradually begins to widen an introspective worldview. The combined sounds of repeated phrases, as seen in minimal music, a sophisticated crossover sound between acoustics and electronics, and an improvisational solo piano present a worldview suggestive of a broader theme, such as the circulation of life or the law of nature. The highlights on the album, "In The Dark Woods" and its variations "Letter From A Distance", will leave listeners with deep emotions and afterglow. In The Dark Woods is released by 1631 Recordings and Schole Records.

First part of a two-part Function retrospective from Ostgut Ton sublabel A-Ton. A mixture of released and previously unreleased tracks, including Function's remix of "Falling The Same Way" by Sandwell District and "Golden Dawn (feat. Stefanie Parnow) (Version)" by Function. "Once a cathedral, now a mall, Limelight was last in the line of Manhattan clubs whose lineage could be traced back to New York's fertile club era of the '70s and '80s, which included the East Village punk and no wave scenes, the Mudd Club, Danceteria and the Paradise Garage. It's connected to a storied New York history -- sometimes holy, sometimes notorious. . . . 'A lot of things that were worlds apart met in that deconsecrated Episcopal church,' recalls David Sumner. 'I used to practically live in that club, going two or three nights a week for years. I knew this was what I was going to do with the rest of my life.' In many ways Limelight was America's rave incubator. On a New Music Seminar night in July of 1992, the revolution was about to take hold. 'Walking in, I didn't know what was going on. Then I started to see xeroxed Underground Resistance 8 1/2 x 11s all around the club, like the kind of inserts that came inside their EPs,' Dave recalls. He would go on to see Mike Banks, Rob 'Noise' Hood, and Jeff Mills perform for an electrified crowd as UR. 'That night straight up changed my life.' . . . New York itself is a major influence for Dave, as is its history of clubs -- from discos and house music, to techno and raves. Think of Todd Terry's 1988 Black Riot record or Boyd Jarvis' 1983 release 'The Music Got Me' as milestones on this journey. 'It's a DJ's approach to music. I remember in the early '90s when the music was changing so rapidly and it felt so revolutionary, separating my records into piles and thinking "I need more of this -- there needs to be more of this kind of record."' It's passion that drives this story of a life in music, and it's a desire to blow your mind the same way his inspirations blew his. Function is always innovating and finding new ways to connect the dots, to continually pursue the art of storytelling through giant slabs of sound." --Brendan M. Gillen, Interdimensional Transmissions, Detroit, 2017

The Trickfinger project was recorded ten years ago with no intention of being released at the time, made purely for discovery and learning experience. John Frusciante on the project: "In my opinion, making music with no intention of releasing it is the best thing a musician can do for his own development in this day and age. The Trickfinger LP (AT 005CD/LP, 2015) was made in that mindset, and it was the beginning of a new musical life for me. When I hear it, it sounds like I am opening up doorways to new worlds, and I never have had that feeling listening to music I made for the purpose of releasing it and selling it." All the music was recorded live onto a CD burner, through a cheap mixer. John would sit on a chair, in his living room, surrounded by five to fifteen machines, and just keep programming and jamming until the track was ready to be recorded. There were no overdubs; it was recorded live. Acid Test unearthed these recordings and John agreed to have them released. Trickfinger II is the second part of recordings made during the winter of 2007.

LP version. The Trickfinger project was recorded ten years ago with no intention of being released at the time, made purely for discovery and learning experience. John Frusciante on the project: "In my opinion, making music with no intention of releasing it is the best thing a musician can do for his own development in this day and age. The Trickfinger LP (AT 005CD/LP, 2015) was made in that mindset, and it was the beginning of a new musical life for me. When I hear it, it sounds like I am opening up doorways to new worlds, and I never have had that feeling listening to music I made for the purpose of releasing it and selling it." All the music was recorded live onto a CD burner, through a cheap mixer. John would sit on a chair, in his living room, surrounded by five to fifteen machines, and just keep programming and jamming until the track was ready to be recorded. There were no overdubs; it was recorded live. Acid Test unearthed these recordings and John agreed to have them released. Trickfinger II is the second part of recordings made during the winter of 2007.

Two Another present Two. "Silky and smooth, wrapped up in '90s R&B influences, Two Another add some warmth to their expanding midnight-soul sound on their latest release" -- Line of Best Fit. Pigeons and Planes on Two Another EP (ADX 008EP, 2016): "... the perfect soundtrack for a daydream or a cool spring evening." "The project's second EP is incoming, with Two Another recently sharing twinkling new cut 'Aiming Up'. Spectral production matched to a haunted atmosphere, it's a quietly over-powering return." --Clash Magazine

Alga Marghen introduce a historical event, the publication of The Lower Depths, a three-CD set of previously unreleased unique piano sonorities by Charlemagne Palestine. In 1977, Charlemagne Palestine was regularly performing in his red and gold loft on North Moore Street in Tribeca, down the street from Magoos bar where all the local artists hung out back then. He was working on a trilogy called The Lower Depths, a work conceived during the crucial moment when he experienced one of the peaks of his creative power. The trilogy takes its name from the potentials of his Bösendorfer weapon which had lower notes than any other piano. The first section starts in the middle of the piano keyboard and the second section two octaves below, while the third section arrives till the very bottom of the instrument. It's a deep, thunderous, rumbling world that we experience. An extreme immersion in the depths of the dark side of strumming music. The Lower Depths is a central work within the history of musical minimalism, stretching and expanding what is understood and expected of an already singular voice. Edition of 300 (numbered).

The third release in Alien Transistor and Tokyo-based label Afterhours' series of four vinyl-only releases documenting the Tenniscoats' four part masterpiece, Music Exists. Disc 3 was originally released on CD in 2016. Disc 3 reunites the couple with their old friends and colleagues, the Swedish musicians from Tape, and sees them concentrate once more on their very own language of making music, offering another collection of essential Tenniscoats songs. Tenniscoats have devoted followers all over the world, but their releases were always hard to find outside of Japan. Except for their album Tokinouta (2011), which saw a very limited run on vinyl, and the seminal Two Sunsets, their collaboration with the Pastels (and a small handful of 7"s), there were never any vinyl-releases, and also the CDs were hard to get for anyone who doesn't speak or read Japanese. In their 20 years, the band has collaborated with the Pastels, Jad Fair, Norman Blake, and others. This set of vinyl releases provides a chance to dive deep into the beautiful, unique world of the Tenniscoats and their opus magnum Music Exists. "It may even be their greatest ever music, essential plus" --Monorail Music, Glasgow. "Whatever's ailing you, Tokyo's Tenniscoats have got something for that" --Boomkat, Manchester. The eventual Disc 4 release will come with a limited box, either for putting the other previously purchased three records in, or as a glorious four-LP package. Includes a double-sided fold-out insert.

Dogging crawled into the world desperately and painfully. Originally slated for release on Brisbane's singular Negative Guest List Records in 2012, the label's owner sadly passed away before it got there. It eventually emerged two years later as a split between two labels from the band's home turf of Sydney, Disinfect Records and R.I.P. Society. It's fitting that the latter had reissued Venom P. Stinger's Dugald McKenzie-era material the year prior -- arguably the only other Australian band that compares to the tough, shit-kicking intensity found on Dogging. Comprised of Mitch Tolman, Cristian O'Sullivan, and Greg Alfaro at this point (the current 2017 line-up includes Dizzy from Oily Boys), the reckless ferocity and defeatist's humor is pointedly nihilistic. It's not kitsch nihilism either, it's the kind that enlivens. Indexing happiness, fear, lust, grief, and sorrow, the wry indulgences outlined in Tolman's coded and scheming lyrics amount to white-knuckle sincerity. It's disarming, but it's blunted by a weighty smirk. If all this weren't delivered through a sardonic curled lip, the violence at the edge of it all would perhaps come off a little less real. There's a bitterly angry confrontation with the contemporary Australian psyche once you enter Low Life's estate. Thugged-out and at pace, there's a genuine rush to Dogging. The mindless logic of "harder and faster" could never get you to where they were at this point. Even at the marginally calmer moments, the guitars glance you like a headache revealing just how bad it is. There's no respite, but on the whole, it's a very functional arrangement between the three of them. Each song is belted out with a short, sharp fit, with some synthesizers occasionally glistening out at the edges. The restraint is all the more fierce as it amplifies everything that's fucked about them. Low Life pull you through it all on all their terms, and that impact feels as untimely and excessive now as it did then.

Featuring tracks by Arthur Colvin, Blair French, Mazri/Imzra, and Windy & Carl. "Cultivation is the brainchild of Jay Rowe and Ross Westerbur. The idea was to have a day in the outdoors to enjoy fresh air, friends, music, meditation, and good food. The day-long event would happen on or around the autumn equinox and feature live music and special musical artifacts released on that day. Past events have included performances and cassette releases by Warren Defever, and Dave Shettler, along with special mixes for Dub Lab Radio. This is the first in a series of vinyl releases that will combine like-minded artists working in the fields of ambient, electronica, and new age musics. All four groups are from the Detroit area and have long histories within the music scene, both locally and globally. Each side represents one artist and a single piece of musical output clocking in at approximately 20 minutes per side. Music for relaxing/healing created by modern sound sculptors. Beautiful gatefold sleeve with a double LP on black vinyl. Comes with download code. One time pressing of 500 copies."

Named by Resident Advisor as the number eight song of 2016, "Heffalump" introduced many to Loft's distinct push-pull approach, throwing listeners into a world of disarmingly charming melodic elements and a rhythmic quotient that brilliantly unfolds over the track's seven-minutes. "Heffalump" which makes its vinyl debut here, is backed by the equally jarring "I Am Bouyant", a hair-brained proto-jungle track that will be familiar to fans of Loft's all-originals mix work and his lauded live sets around the Manchester area. This is the Los Angeles label Astral Plane Records' debut on wax.

Spanish musical genius Henry Saiz provided one of Balance Music's most memorable efforts with Balance 019 (BAL 003CD, 2011), utilizing vinyl, cassette, reel-to-reel tapes, and over 100 field recordings to create an incredible patchwork of sounds. Saiz returns for Balance Presents Natura Sonoris, an expansive mix comprised completely of exclusives from his award-winning label. Saiz has used only exclusive and unreleased tracks from his label family, many specially commissioned for this continuous 140-minute mix. Upcoming releases get a debut airing; favorites get new reworks; and Saiz provides his own new productions. The ghosts of dark '80s electro-pop like Depeche Mode hover in the tortured vocals and dramatic mood of Saiz-penned opener "Lone Wolf". Muted chimes on Hal Incandenza's "Contacto" provide the perfect segue into the marimba arpeggios of Bufi's "Bird Song". Things take a global twist with the African and Latin rhythms and melodies of R.I.P. Bestia and Landikhan and deeper turns via A Friend Of Marcus and Saiz's shimmering remix of Damabiah. Joep Mencke's "Sonder" picks up the energy with its driving beats and strong melodies before Brassica gives the mix a more intense, direct edge, with healthy doses of breaks and acid over two remixes. The mix takes on a more chugging, energetic feel with Marc Marzenit's "The Walrus" and the detuned 8-bit melody madness of Victoria Rodriguez's "Moon On A Bright Day", followed by an ascent into euphoric melody with Brian Cid's "Luminous Black" and Saiz & Tentacle's synth-tastic "The Prophetess". The mellifluous vocals of Saiz's "The Light" get a gorgeous, piano-heavy update from bRUNA, contrasting with Saiz's remix of Sistema's "Entreé", a near-beatless interlude that again recalls '80s emotive melodies. The final third of the mix comprises largely of a masterclass in production from Saiz, such as the glistening chimes of his Petar Dundov collaboration and the warped hooks of his remix of NVBSL's "Woodhouse". It's punctuated by a brooding, sprawling epic from Voltaeric, with the intense sound design and deep atmospheres of Sandman, and closed with another mesmerizing trio of Saiz productions that culminates in the epic chug of "Spiricom (See You Soon)". Throughout, Saiz peppers the mix with samples from his own productions, layering them subtly with other tracks to great effect, ensuring this is a captivating listen that captures a range of moods. Also features: JMII, Tuff City Kids, NVSBL, Eduardo De La Calle, Cora Novoa, and Brynjolfur.

After the sold-out cassette release of Stanza / Stanza II on Beacon Sound in 2015 (a co-release with Baro) and 2016's The Benoit Pioulard Listening Matter on Kranky, Seattle's Thomas Meluch returns with a brand new Benoit Pioulard album of ambient bliss. Floating on a plume of pure shoegaze, Lignin Poise conjures nature, specifically the waters and forests of the Cascadia bioregion, as ecstatic reverie. It is a work of deliberate renewal in a time of global tumult. A golden oasis of deep memory open to all seekers; hallucinogenic, like stumbling into one of the verdant. highly-oxygenated upper canyons of the Columbia River Gorge on a late spring morning, soaking in the warm humidity and cool mist. In Tom's own words: "I recorded this album during the fall and winter of last year, and it's thematically meant to trace a path through decay, death, and regeneration over the course of the tracks. My flat/studio is surrounded by deciduous trees (a huge deal for me especially since I live in the heart of the city) so those patterns were right in my face every day while I was recording. Lignin forms the support systems of vascular plants, so the title is intended to convey the posture and temporariness of life in full bloom."

Hotel Record is the second release from the duo/couple of crys cole and Oren Ambarchi, following on from Sonja Henies vei 31 (PLANAM 031LP, 2014). Where their debut recording presented a disquieting portrait of the erotic dimension of romantic intimacy, the follow-up continues to explore the pair's simultaneously musical and romantic relationship in a more subtle fashion, presenting four long-form pieces that touch on the variety of forms the life of this couple takes: as a musical duo, as a pair of travelers to exotic locations, as opponents in a game of cards... Each of the double LP's four sides presents a distinct sound-world, yet each manages to attain the same suspended, half-sleeping feeling, outlining a space where improbable combinations of the electronic and the acoustic, of extreme closeness and amorphous distance, occurring with the gentle insistence of a dream. The opening "Call Myself" calmly unfolds a fabric of long tones from electronic organ and guitar, combining the sliding, aleatoric effects of classic David Behrman with a more hands-on feel. Over the top of this slowly shifting tonal bed, cole's voice mutters unintelligibly into a Buchla synth, teasing the listener by suggesting a meaning that remains always out of the ear's reach. "Francis Debacle (Uno)" builds on the foundations of a heavily amplified session of the titular card game, overlaying vocal murmurs and exhalations and mysterious room-sounds to create an impossible aural environment. On "Burrata", a palette of vintage 1980s digital synthesizer sounds combined with guitars create an irregular texture of lush chords and bubbling melodic details, into which cole's voice processed by a vocoder, is interwoven, reading fragments of romantic correspondence. Finally, on "Pad Phet Gob", field recordings made in Thailand become an ambiguously acoustic/electronic rainforest, eventually giving way to a mysterious, wavering electronic tone-field punctuated by sibilant, popping mouth-sounds. Carving out an intimate and human sonic space across a diverse array of compositional approaches, sound sources, fidelities, and textures, Hotel Record is the latest dispatch from the continuing explorations of a unique duo. Ambarchi and cole reimagine electro-acoustic music, not simply as "abstract" sound, but as a diary, a love poem, a dream. Comes in deluxe gatefold sleeve with photography by crys cole and LP design via Stephen O'Malley; Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering.

Earlier in 2017, Ellen Allien dropped her seventh solo album, Nost (BPC 330CD/LP). The album provided a link between the past and the future, blending influences from the very early days of Berlin techno with contemporary sounds and, of course, a vision of the future. Now BPitch Control present the first batch of specially commissioned remixes, taking Ellen's original works in a new direction with four artists delivering their own interpretations of music featured on the album. Emmanuel Top, ROD, K-Hand, and Skudge are the first ensemble of techno titans to administer the remix treatment to tracks from Nost.

Fresh off 2016's The Feudal Spirit LP on Poon Village (PV 010LP), Rob Noyes brings a breakneck-paced, attention-demanding number to his side. Noyes's style and finger work fills space with a density and heaviness that may harken back to his hardcore/punk roots. Alexander has been quietly amassing a catalog of cassettes over the years, many of which are reminiscent of Alan Bishop (as Alvarius B) in their homespun, improvisational style. On this split, Alexander eases into a coy and sentimental tune that unwinds across five-and-a-half minutes, his keen grasp of intricacy and minimalism cementing him as a top player.

Colombian producer Pablo Cahn presents a long, attractive, dancefloor tune with an overwhelming bass line and a deluge of vocal grains that shape fills and breakdowns all over the track. As the journey goes further, a complex twist of harmonies and resonances arises. Paco Osuna's remix recaps all the rhythmic elements and shrinks the vocal drizzle, intertwining the relentless bassline and stinging hi-hats before a magnificent outbreak of the dense original chords.

2013 release. Boris Hegenbart takes a dub-like approach to musique concrète. Rich contrasts, drawn between synthetic and recorded sounds, allow texture and space to flourish in place of melody. First / Dew branches away from the very beginnings of Hegenbart's [#/TAU] series. It takes his debut album, Hikuioto (a self-published CD released in 1996), and reimagines it on vinyl.

2013 release. Scott Cazan's music is driven by a fascination in the fullness of sound as well as an interest in network and information theory. Like the writings of those who inspire him, such as Deleuze, Baudrillard, and Alexander Galloway, his work, for all its directness, has a dark and seductive aura. Swallow is an album that lingers at the borders between memory, ambience, and feedback.

2013 release. Henning Lahmann on Ezra Buchla's At The Door: "Ezra Buchla creates immersive, intricate, and at times overwhelming soundscapes carried by masterful viola and synth renditions, broken up only by his dark yet soft, almost hushed voice."

2014 release. Les Duresses emerges through a prism of speculative intonation. Marc Sabat uncovers an opening of tonal possibilities that he roots in an unfinished composition for solo violin by Morton Feldman. From its enigmatic notation and the conceptual tendencies expressed by Feldman, Sabat determines that the fragment is written in an alternate tonal space. Throughout Les Duresses, this space is given shape and consideration. Sabat draws on a sound world, not from Feldman, but like Feldman, that invites listeners to absorb themselves in longer durations where patterns can unfold. It comes from an imaginary American folk music, full of meandering, drifting, and at times, exuberance.

2015 release. Along the arc of Lucrecia Dalt's music, beyond what steers her so allusively away from self-repetition, there is an undefinable forward inertia. What can explain, for instance, the near absence of her voice? Is it personal interest, renunciation, an embrace? Is she driven by a backdrop of conceptualism, or is this a lyrical wandering? What is known, for starters, is that she made Ou immersed in a cinema of her own, curatorial creation. Ou's filmic quality is a direct consequence of her turning her studio into a screening room for classic works of new German cinema, pulling influence from directors such as Helke Sander and Werner Schroeter. As she works, she absorbs, and Ou results from a conscious staging of this process. The impact can be felt both at the levels of surface and structure. While the sound quality reflects these evocative, multi-layered scenarios, the larger departure from any of her previous works is the album's spatial, mix-like composition, with each track being made up of several companion titles.

2016 release. Following 2015's Teaspoon To The Ocean, Jib Kidder delivers an uncanny dance LP featuring no-input mixer sequenced together with drum machine. It steers the chaotic atmosphere of Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music (1975) towards an emotive tide of information that, whether too much or too little, makes it hard to grasp but easy to eat up. If electronic music has been made familiar (through musique concréte or Lee Gamble) with the conversion of noise into dance, New Works For Realistic Mixer circumscribes this progression within a less stable relationship: what might be called, after Stella, the marriage of reason and squalor.

Mike Kitcher's Processed Snippets falls firmly into the category of new exotica, a music created from a very specific location that becomes placeless through abstraction. Kitcher reworks moments recorded from the SWP Records re-mastered release of Congo Traditional 1952 & 1957 (SWP 046LP, 2014), a collection of recordings by Hugh Tracey. Tracey, a pioneering documenter of traditional music across the continent of Africa was notable for the extent of his travels and the breadth of his work, as well as his technique of live mixing multi-instrumental tracks with a hand-held microphone. This method produces tracks that focus on specific instruments with a shifting of foreground and background. In his work he, aimed to reflect the listening experience in the field. Kitcher's album reflects on Tracey's process by limiting each track to a limited sample and using basic EQ-ing alongside only one software processor: IRCAM's "the scrub". He foreshortens the landscape, by zooming in onto moments of breath, the moment of the release of contact from the instrument, bursts of silence, or processed modifications that transform vocals into the echo of ivory horns. Within this magnified view, the richness of the original material is turned over and seen from an array of angles. Kitcher notes that "inflections, harmony, expression, and pulsing modulations all grab my attention, frequently expressed through voice, conical drums, luma pipes or lamellaphones, among other instruments."

Kernschmelze: "the dying gasps of the Age of Enlightenment". Kernschmelze II is a cantata for voices, in this case the voice of Crass songstress Eve Libertine, processed by Charles Webber to almost choral proportions. Working on Kernschmelze II alongside Eve Libertine, Penny Rimbaud has been able to produce a classic album on par with their 1984 album Acts Of Love released by Crass Records. Libertine's sparse, vulnerable poetics counter the almost Wagnerian scale of the work, challenging preconceptions of what music should be and making strong suggestions as to what it might yet become. Extreme electronics sourced solely from vocal sounds to create noise music of an intense and highly demanding nature. Comes in an ecopak with artwork by Gee Vaucher.

"In 1973, EMI Records Nigeria released the 45 rpm disc 'Fuel for Love' b/w 'Soundway,' credited to a mysterious band called Wrinkar Experience. The record was a finely-crafted gem of pop-rock and funky soul as had never before been heard coming out of the country's nascent rock scene, and it ended up being the biggest selling Nigerian single up until that point. The success of Wrinkar Experience effectively demonstrated that was a market for homegrown pop and rock, and sent record labels scrambling to sign similar bands, kicking off the Nigerian rock revolution that is still being celebrated and discovered by new generations today. But while Wrinkar Experience launched the movement, the group itself would be short-lived: after another hit single in 1973, the band's frontman Danie Ian split for a solo career. The remaining principal players in the group -- Cameroonian musicians Ginger Forcha and Edjo'o Jacques Racine -- tried to keep the Wrinkar name going before giving it up and rebranding themselves as Rock Town Express. Rock Town Express's debut LP Funky Makossa was recorded in 1974 for ARC Records, the cutting-edge studio and label established in Lagos by English drum legend Ginger Baker. The album showcased in long format the qualities that had only been hinted at on the Wrinkar Experience singles: bright, confident pop melodies, articulate lyrics, and darkly potent funk-rock. Comb & Razor Sound is proud to present a new, fully-authorized reissue of Funky Makossa, featuring the seven tracks from the original release, plus 'I Am A Natural Man' and 'I Don't Want To Know,' from Wrinkar Experience's seldom-heard third and final single."

Oracle, the first album by the German supergroup Web Web, is very uncut, raw, live, and direct. Their initial idea was to record a spiritual-jazz type of album, with all its imperfection as far as intonation, sound, influences of tunes, just like the big jazz-heroes of the '70s. Web Web's idea was to record a jazz jam session while to found and proclaim being a fictive band, a formation, which did not exist, while telling people, it would be a secret jam session recording of the '70s. But they decided to reveal their real identities: Roberto Di Gioia (piano, synth, percussion), Tony Lakatos (tenor and soprano saxophone), Christian von Kaphengst (upright bass), and Peter Gall (drums). Oracle was recorded in one day, and only first takes were used. Oracle is the first live jazz release on Compost. Roberto Di Gioia has been working with numerous jazz-legends, such as Woody Shaw, Art Farmer, James Moody, Johnny Griffin, Charlie Rouse, Clifford Jordan, Clark Terry, Roy Ayers, Gregory Porter, and many more and from 1990-2008, he was a member Klaus Doldinger's Passport. He started his own group Marsmobil in 2003. Since 2007, he has been working together with Samon Kawamura and Max Herre as KAHEDI. Tony Lakatos originates from the world famous Lakatos-familiy from Budapest, Hungary. His father was a famous violinist, as well as his younger brother Roby. Tony studied at the Bela Bartok Conservatory in Budapest. Since then he played on over 350 jazz albums. Tony was a member of Jasper Van't Hof's Pili Pili. Christian von Kaphengst learned the piano at the Peter Cornelius Conservatory in Mainz when he was six years old. From 1988 to 1995 he studied upright-bass at the "Musikhochschule" in Cologne. He was touring with his own Jazzquartett "Cafe du Sport" to Pakistan, India, Turkey, and West-Africa. Peter Gall won some important German awards when he was a youngster, like the "Jugend Jazzt". He was touring with the famous Bundesjazzorchester conducted by German jazz legend Peter Herbholzheimer. He studied at the Berlin University Of Fine Arts and at the Jazz Institute Berlin with John Hollenbeck. Produced by Roberto Di Gioia and Michael Reinboth. Oracle was engineered, recorded, and mixed by Jan Krause (Beanfield, Poets Of Rhythm).

The original "Brexit Jazz" track was recorded and programmed, played live at the Beanfield Studio Munich in 2016, right after the British government announced the Brexit on (black) Friday morning. Compost announced a remix competition of the track and got over 90 remixes. Here are the winners of the "Brexit Jazz" remix competition and a brand new version made by Roberto Di Gioia (Marsmobil/Web Web), Jan Krause (Beanfield), and Michael Reinboth (Compost). Remixes by Konvex & The Shadow + Melokolektiv, Letryp, and CRS & BRG.

After meeting at the Black Label Sessions parties at Munich club Harry Klein, Lukas Bohlender sent the label his tune "Club Chateau" in the autumn of 2012. The label featured the track on Black Label #94 (2013). In 2013, Lukas remixed Robinn's "The Game Is Now Over". In 2016, Lukas played the label "The Sublime" and "Curly Bun". Backed up by a floor friendly remix by Beanfield and Thomas Herb, the tracks were released in 2016 (COMP 486EP). Golden Hour EP offers two powerful and emotive deep house joints, padded with layers of elegant synths and crafty percussions.

2013 release. In 2000, saxophonist Mats Gustafsson and curator John Corbett organized a 16-piece free music big-band, featuring key members of the Chicago and Swedish scenes. The ensemble debuted in Chicago, playing and recording two compositions that had been commissioned, "Codeine Picasso" by Ken Vandermark, and "In This Very Room" by Fredrik Ljungkvist. Soon thereafter, the musicians convened in Sweden for a tour of the country that ended at the legendary Stockholm club Fasching. Gustafsson had intended for the music to be issued on his label Crazy Wisdom, which existed for a short, beautiful moment as an imprint of Swedish Universal. Indeed, the recording of Pipeline was mixed and mastered, but the label pulled the plug on Crazy Wisdom just before the release, and it sat dormant for more than a decade. Listening to it again, the music has all the power and originality it did when it was recorded, at the crest of a wave in Chicagoan creative music history. A panoramic group, Pipeline included the Konitz-inflected sax and clarinet of Guillermo Gregorio, the spiky guitar of David Stackenäs, the percussion thicket of Michael Zerang, Raymond Strid, and Kjell Nordeson, and Jim Baker's unearthly ARP synthesizer sounds, all mixed into an ecstatic, explosive Scanda-Chicagoan spread -- a veritable smörgåsm. Recorded by John McCortney at Airwave Studios, Chicago, on September 26, 2000. Mastered by McCortney and Gustafsson, January 28, 2001; Produced by John Corbett and Mats Gustafsson.

2013 release. In 1971, multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee waxed one of the landmark free-funk records: Nation Time. Recorded in concert at Vassar College and originally released on McPhee's own CjRecord Productions label, Nation Time culled elements of post-Coltrane spiritual jazz, greasy organ funk, and expressive R&B into a previously unknown brand of Poughkeepsie stew. When the LP was finally reissued on CD a dozen years ago, it became an instant hit, drawing fans from the British soul scene and denizens of free jazz alike. Corbett Vs. Dempsey present Nation Time: The Complete Recordings (1969-70), a four disc box set, featuring all the music leading up to and around the seminal album. With 17 tracks previously unreleased on CD, most of which have never been issued at all, the set provides an expansive picture of the vibrant up-state New York free jazz/new thing scene, centered as it was on Joe McPhee. Nation Time: The Complete Recordings helps contextualize the original album, exploring the special milieu in which tracks like "Shaky Jake" and "Scorpio's Dance" took shape. Along with the album, complete and remastered, Nation Time: The Complete Recordings presents additional tracks recorded during the original two day performances in December 1970, including a version of James Brown's "Cold Sweat", as well as the full LP Black Magic Man (1975), which was released on vinyl as the very first issue of the fledgling Hat Hut Records record label in 1975, but has never been reissued on CD. Two fascinating concert recordings from 1969 are released here for the first time, one featuring McPhee on trumpet playing jazz standards, and the other recorded at a local bar called the Paddock, including the first incarnation of what would become the track "Nation Time". The four CD box set includes: One CD of Nation Time, the complete original album, remastered; One CD of Black Magic Man, the complete original album, complete with two alternate takes of "Song for Lauren"; One CD of The Vassar Sessions, 1970, comprising six unreleased tracks from the Nation Time recording sessions; One CD of Nation Time Preview, 1969, two concert recordings in the run-up to Nation Time; 60-page liner booklet, full-color, with never-published vintage photos; A definitive Nation Time interview with Joe McPhee by John Corbett; Comes in hardshell case, with separate cardboard sleeves for all four discs.

2014 release. One of the most celebrated folks in improvised music, Swedish saxophonist Mats Gustafsson made three ultra-limited edition vinyl LPs, each featuring a different dedication to a favorite musician from the past. Released in batches of 99, these records found Gustafsson playing compositions by Duke Ellington, Albert (and his brother Donald) Ayler, and the important post-bop baritone player Lars Gullin. Long out-of-print, these priceless slabs of free music have quickly become sought after collector's items. Torturing The Saxophone compiles all three LPs, plus some extra material, featuring Gustafsson at both his most experimental and his most lyrical. He purrs his way through Ellington's "In a Sentimental Mood", then demolishes "Come Sunday". He draws out Gullin's "Danny's Dream", rendering it truly dreamlike, perhaps nightmarish. Gustafsson shared the LPs with his new friend R. Crumb, the famous comics artist and shellac enthusiast. Crumb's stunned response provides liner notes for the CD ("... I was kind of shocked at what a negative, unpleasant experience it was... "), and the perfect title. Only one way to hear what rubbed Crumb so hard the wrong way -- listen in to hear what pain and possible injury Mats Gustafsson inflicts upon his horns.

2014 release. In July 2013, a few months after the passing of his mother, cornetist Rob Mazurek performed solo at the Corbett Vs. Dempsey gallery in Chicago. Mazurek is one of the highest profile figures in contemporary creative music, leading bands like the Exploding Star Orchestra, Skull Sessions Octet, and Starlicker. On this occasion, he brought a box filled with various implements -- his cornet, naturally, but flutes, bells, books, maracas, apples, and little electronics. This box became an inexhaustible resource as he pulled new soundmakers from it and performed a profoundly intense dedication to his mom, culminating in a durational event that found him shaking the remaining contents of the box over his head until he could no longer hold his arms aloft. It was one of the most moving musical happenings that anyone at the gallery could remember, and Corbett Vs. Dempsey have taken the opportunity to release it as a CD. Often, such potent live events don't translate to a recording, but on Mother Ode, the emotional impact of Mazurek's dedication appear just as vividly, a deep mourning of death rubbing elbows with a joyous celebration of life.

2014 release. Saxophonist George Davis is an enigmatic figure in postwar jazz. He's best known for leading the band in which Jackie & Roy met -- young singer Jackie Cain encountered pianist Roy Krall in the mid-1940s, playing together under Davis in a club on the south side of Chicago called Jump Town. They cut two 78-rpm records for Aristocrat as the George Davis Quartet; these sides followed Davis into obscurity. In 1948/49, Jackie & Roy went on to work with Charlie Ventura. At the same time, Davis cut a very unusual set of acetates with an unidentified band (bass, drums, piano, trumpet, guitar, with Davis on alto and tenor sax), playing some standards and a selection of compositions identified as original but which turn out to have been pilfered from the Fats Navarro songbook. The unique 78-rpm records, which were rediscovered in a record shop in Chicago a few years ago, had not been previously issued. Awkwardly announced by Davis, who pretends that there is an audience though it is clear that they're being waxed in solitude, these privately recorded bop and R&B tracks are pure Chicago jazz, hot, swinging, and bristling with attitude. Another lovely missive from the dustbin of music history.

2014 release. An epic outing on electric guitar, recorded in November 2013, as part of an evening of music and film at the Art Institute of Chicago. The CD features a single magnificent improvisation, ranging from brittle, delicate passages to full-throttle flame-throwing. Performing an accompaniment to James Nares's brilliant film Street (2001), Thurston Moore played with his back to the screen, letting the sounds and images converge and diverge of their own accord. The result was an extraordinary stand-alone live recording that shows Moore at peak power, one of the most confident and original guitarists of his generation. Cover artwork by Nares.

2014 release. In 1998, at WNUR Radio, Evanston, the legendary German bassist Peter Kowald met two Chicagoans in the studio for a brisk set of string trios. Fellow-bassist Kent Kessler and cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm, essential members of the Chicago scene, are well known as international improvisers too, and the threesome dug in for a fierce face-off. The session was closely recorded in the studio's intimate confines, which could barely contain their energy. Kowald proposed a set of six miniatures, all ranging around a minute in length, as a counterpoint to the longer tracks. When Kessler left, Kowald and Lonberg-Holm stayed on playing a few duets, more conversational in tone. The musicians all loved the results, a CD was planned, delayed, as happens, and then Kowald died suddenly in 2002, almost to the day four years since recording Flats Fixed. Corbett Vs. Dempsey finally present this glorious music, which had been prepared and shelved more than a decade ago. Dedicated to the memory of Comrade Kowald.

2014 release. Chicago-based cellist and composer Tomeka Reid, a mainstay on the Windy City scene and an important contemporary member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, was commissioned to create original music for the first documentary to chronicle the Imagists, Chicago's hometown post-surrealists who exhibited together starting in the mid-1960s. Reid composed theme music for the film and made a wide range of multi-track improvisations based on moods, creating a tableau from which the film drew as it unwound the artists' circuitous tale. For the CD, Reid returned to the studio to make new versions of some of the tracks and to transform the extant material into a fully realized suite of music. It retains a sense of light-heartedness and depth, whimsy and melancholy, adding voice and percussion to her indelible cello.

2015 release. A reissue of Steve Lacy and Steve Potts's Tips, originally released on Hat Hut Records in 1981. Soprano saxophonist Lacy wrote the suite of tunes for Tips to feature the aphorisms of painter Georges Braque, as sung by Irene Aebi. Together with his right-hand-man, alto saxophonist Potts, he and Aebi recorded these 14 anthemic tracks in Paris in 1979, and the young hat Hut Records label issued them on a now-rare LP. The music allowed Lacy to extend and deepen his longstanding interest in setting text to music, and at the same time it provided a perfect context for extrapolated duets with Potts, whose dedication to Lacy over twenty years of collaboration somewhat overshadowed his own creative output. This CD is the first release of Lacy's full Hat Hut Records oeuvre, mastered from the original tapes. Personnel: Steve Lacy - soprano saxophone; Steve Potts - alto saxophone; Irene Aebi - voice. Music by Steve Lacy; text by George Braque. Recorded in Paris, December 14, 1979. Remastered at Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago, January 2015; Reissue produced by John Corbett.

Italian duo Toms Due return to Etruria Beat with two banging original tracks and remixes by Ambivalent and Cosmin TRG. "Magma" a powerful track with a big-room kick and an old-school melody that grows together with a simple one-note chord to create a destructive tool. "Stratum" is characterized by powerful melodic chords and an energetic groove. Ambivalent's remix of "Magma" is all dark synths and raw drums, with sharp 909 rhythms. Cosmin TRG's remix of "Stratum" is a powerful techno tool that wraps hypnotic chords in a techno drum groove.

Far Out Recordings present the first vinyl reissue of Antonio Adolfo's Viralata, originally released in 1979. Far Out Recordings are working again with master composer, arranger, and pianist, Antonio Adolfo for the first time since releasing his Destiny album in 2007 (FARO 121CD). This time the label present his era-defining Viralata album: An essential album from Brazil's majorly progressive heyday of late seventies jazz-funk. Viralata is a sacred artefact of Brazilian music, which Antonio himself describes as "a product of my hybrid musical influences that joins together flavors of marchinhas de carnaval, frevo, toada, classical, baia?o, mpb and jazz, etc." The album's first track "Cascavel" is the emotionally charged, celebratory dance anthem, which became a London jazz-dance classic in the early '90s after Far Out Recordings label boss Joe Davis discovered a handful of copies in a second hand shop in Sao Paulo and brought them back to London to sell to DJs like Gilles Peterson and Patrick Forge. In recent years the track has been played out by the likes of Floating Points, Mr Scruff, and Andrew Ashong, it was also the last song ever to play on the hallowed soundsystem of London's beloved club Plastic People. Sean McAuliffe of Plastic People & NTS Radio on its play at the club: "Saturday nights at Plastic People wouldn't have been the same without this album. 'Cascavel' was such an important track for the club, it was the last tune we played there before the doors were closed forever." Viralata sits comfortably on the same pedestal as Azymuth's 1979 album Light As A Feather (FARO 170CD) and Joao Donato's Quem É Quem (1973), which is no coincidence. All three keystone LPs were recorded and engineered by Toniniho, considered by many to be "the Brazilian Rudy Van Gelder", whose magic touches in the studio also helped to produce Marcos Valle's Previsão Do Tempo (1973) and Joyce's Água E Luz (1981), among many other holy grails and unassailable classics of soulful Brazilian music. Antonio's work has been widely performed by his legendary Brazilian contemporaries including Sergio Mendes, Emilio Santiago, and Erasmo Carlos, but also by platinum-selling American icons including Stevie Wonder, Herb Alpert, and Dionne Warwick. Following an early '70s spell of studying jazz in the USA, Viralata's release in 1979 arrived at the height of a flourishing period of Antonio's career. With his late '60s and '70s output following through on his influences of Tropicalia, funk, MPB, and easy listening, the almost entirely instrumental Viralata marked an apex for Brazilian jazz. Comes on 180 gram vinyl.

Mastering engineer and producer Herb LF (Westpark Unit, Gush Collective, Discoshit) opens this EP with the hugely soulful and epic "Where are the Young Men?", a reminiscence to the early '80s era of punk and new wave, while Henry L & Ingo Sänger's remix of the track adds a dose of funk, disco, and Detroit techno. Herb LF's "Real Pong, Madrid" has a demanding groove with beautiful, spacey chords, as soulful as it gets. Ambient monster "Air" closes the EP with deep breaths.

"In the world we inhabit (the world of the underground), one of the easiest ways to categorize people who fall into our gutter is by analyzing their motives and history. Viewed by this light, people are either lifers or careerist fucks; dedicated to the cause now and forever, or stupid moths attracted to the occasional flashes of light that emanate from the pit. By this measure (and all others), Tarp are lifers. The duo, Conrad Capistran and Joshua Burkett (look up their glorious histories online), began early in the century, during the ascendance of the plumbers' crack noise revolution. But even then, they didn't feel compelled to show their butts to the audience. They'd just sit at their electronics, thousand yard stares guiding their eyes, and play some of the best low-bore machine improv since the glory days of Cluster. That they have managed to survive into the era of Drumpf is a testament both to the rock solid nature of their musical convictions as well as to their stalwart disavowal of all that is hip. They do what they do not because they think it will lead them anywhere socially or commercially, but because they're intrigued in where it might lead them aesthetically. Both Conrad and Joshua have various other ongoing musical concerns, but a decade and a half into the Tarp experiment, there is no sign they have reached the apex of their journey. There is still a lot of space to be explored out there. Previously, Tarp has not been well served in the area of recordings. The five lathe LP box we issued back in 2013, Tarp, is certainly a beautiful and expansive set, but its limited edition natured dictated that it would not be widely heard. Now, however, this similarly titled studio session has made its way into your universe. Ostensibly recorded (by Chris Corsano) to be released on Bill Nace's Open Mouth label, it long languished for a variety of reasons. But now it has been saved. And in saving it, we sort of think we might be saving you as well. Say hello to Tarp." --Byron Coley, 2017 Edition of 300.

"Unlike World War 3 II, which referred to the second album by that thuggish UK band, or Manfred Mann's Chapter III, which referred to the third outfit led by Mr. Mann, Manas III is neither the third album by Manas, nor the third iteration of the band. Rather, it refers to the number of participants on the second album by this spectacular Asheville NC unit, previously known primarily as a duo. The two main actors in question are guitarist, Tashi Dorji, and drummer Thom Nguyen. Tashi's earliest recordings were largely acoustic abstractions, lauded by everyone from Ben Chasny to William 'Bill' Nace. Thom's drumming has been part of such legendary Asheville ensembles as the great Mendocino (LP hopefully forthcoming sometime). Together, they presented an electric splat approach to power-improv with parallels to outfits like Rangda and OvO. Their first album, Manas (FTR 208LP, 2015), blew the lips off most people who heard it. For Manas III, percussionist Tyler Damon (who has also recorded with Tashi in a duo format) is added to the mix. His playing brings a whole new width and depth to the proceedings, comprised as it is of varietal clanging and tingling in the tradition of Jamie Muir and those who sail with him. The flavors this adds to the music are alternately proggy and free, and we think you'll agree this trio thing is a blast. Tashi's guitar work is full of static-rich surges that sounds like something Nikola Tesla would dig. And the bottom is a fat and fleet as Queen. We've been complete suckers for everything Tashi has done thus far, and Manas is one of the best projects he's undertaken. Pretty sure Manas III is going to knock you right off your bike. So hang on tight." --Byron Coley, 2017 Front and back cover art by Bill Nace; Edition of 300.

2x12" version. Scented gatefold sleeve, relief varnish; 140 gram vinyl. Brainwaltzera's debut album Poly-Ana follows quickly on the heels of the producer's Aescoba EP (FILM 006EP, 2017). Across thirteen tracks of both previously released material and fresh excursions into the artist's world, Brainwaltzera explores sounds ranging from luscious, downtempo grooves and expertly reduced brain-dance cuts with nods to early '90s experimental IDM to harder, more caustic outings, all bound together by a recurring theme of otherworldly ambience. Taking its name from a variety of sources dear to the artist, including polyphonic analog synthesizers and the Pollyanna principle itself -- a theory that suggests individuals recall pleasurable experience more acutely than displeasing ones -- the title represents a meeting point in the artistic process between creative method and conceptual choices. Production techniques range from more traditional hardware synthesis to the incorporation of a modified dot matrix printer acting as a modulation source for MIDI parameters. Sample sources include VHS material from the producer's own childhood and ambient Bullet Train samples from a production session traveling from Tokyo to Kyoto. According to the enigmatic producer, memory and its fundamental role in the human experience is one of the central themes of the record. While the artist's own experiences shaped the sound of the record, there is no attempt to impose them on the listener through blatant exposition. A particular stimulus, such as sound or scent, can transport an individual back to a particular point in their life. Scent has long been identified as the most efficient agent for this phenomenon, providing perhaps the most visceral form of "brain travel". With this in mind, a unique fragrance was engineered by creative director Mario Lombardo's Atelier Oblique brand, exclusively for the album's physical release. This was designed to act as a vehicle to assist the listener in retaining the first experience of hearing the record and to act as a future trigger, transporting the individual back to that moment. Brainwaltzera's work has quickly found plaudits amongst a host of industry tastemakers and artists alike -- not least Aphex Twin himself, who has appeared sporadically online with comments praising the music via his now infamous user18081971 SoundCloud account. Mature and wonderfully executed, Poly-Ana represents some of the finest recent work within the genre, and yet another noteworthy addition to the FILM discography.

In 2016, it was estimated that 400 hours of content was uploaded to YouTube, 2,430,555 posts were liked on Instagram, and 6,944,444 videos were watched on Snapchat. And these figures won't stay static. The amount of data that is uploaded, and in turn the amount everyone consumes every year, is growing exponentially. As this expanding data pool grows, making sense of it becomes concurrently more difficult; the distinctions between dream and reality, fact and fiction, truth and lie fade to obscurity. Information City, the sophomore album from Copenhagen's Tobias Hjørnet Pedersen, aka Beastie Respond, attempts to reflect this world in a very direct sense. Information City is the simulacrum in which people live and exist, where cultural identities exist primarily as representations of a real without origin. Writing the album, Pedersen set no limits on his sample sources, instead taking fragments from a vast array of media, reflecting on the themes outlined above. This resulted in Information City being completely stylistically unchained, giving reference to everything from UK bass genres to electro, footwork, and synth wave. "Downloaded 4 R. D4wkins" for example pits Moving Shadow reminiscent rave stabs against juke-like percussive workouts, while opener "Real Without Origin" re-contextualizes cliché? trap-style drops with hollowed-out, swaggering low-end, calling to mind recent hybrids of UK grime and American hip-hop. At other points, Pedersen eschews the dancefloor entirely. Tracks like "Lullabies For The Lost And Forgotten" or "He Used His Bench Lathe To Form His Wooden Sculpture" provide respite from the thunderous barrages of percussion with slurred melodies and dream-like anime soundscapes. Comprising the fourth release from Foul-Up, Information City is a brave proposition for a second album. Pedersen tackles it with vibrancy and audacity, inviting his listeners into a fast-paced world of bright lights and unbridled imagination.

For Fun Records' fifth release they welcome Mariano Mateljan, the infamous Croatian DJ, producer, and talented electronic music artist. Nibong comes out with four tracks, traced by the analog frizzly details that have been characterizing every Fun Records release. Nibong enters directly to the highest clubbing experience, but it's shaped as only Mateljan could make it. It will be difficult to listen to "Thetea" without letting yourself go and stop thinking for a while: subtle feelings rise as the dreamy and slightly broken melody develops. "Lotus" may be the most ethereal, leaving you feeling as sensitive as a sunset.

Through The Sparkle is a collaboration between French ensemble Astrïd and American pianist and composer Rachel Grimes. Rachel Grimes is best known for her chamber music project Rachel's, a hugely influential group formed in 1991 in Louisville, Kentucky, releasing six studio albums between 1995 and 2005. She has also released a string of contemporary classical works in recent years on labels such as Temporary Residence. Astrïd is a collective of four musicians based in Nantes, releasing records on Rune Grammofon and Home Normal. After years of mail and email back and forth over the ocean, from Nantes to Kentucky, Astrïd invited Rachel to come for a residency to make music together and play shows in France. They gathered for a few days, here and there, in 2012 and 2013 to write songs in Cyril and Vanina's home studio in the countryside. The compositions found on Through The Sparkle glow with a unique, connected energy and a pure, instinctive musical understanding. Considered contributions from all sides allow the pieces to unfurl naturally. Each note and phrase feels like it simply couldn't be placed anywhere else in the album. Charming, gentle, and cinematic sounds are found here in abundance. Melodies circle and reveal themselves without force, allowing the listener to focus and explore the depths of what is on offer. Musically, Through The Sparkle is an expansive and evocative album. There is a presence to be felt throughout, from Cyril Secq's emotive tremelo'd guitars of "M5" to the darker, more haunting mood of "The Theme", to the tension in "Mossgrove & Seaweed". Strings and woodwind coalesce around intricate piano and guitar movements creating a wealth of harmony and melancholy. Through The Sparkle is a record of miniature symphonies, of elegant restraint. A gracious and generous offering from a group of musicians at one with each other and at the top of their game. Artwork by SmilingPaperGhosts.

David Barker on Glass Hymnbook (1980-1982): "Religious Overdose, from Northampton, were the first band to send me a tape. It was strange and I liked it. I asked them if they wanted to make a record, they said yes and, after a trip to see them play a gig, I got them down to Ciaran's flat in East London to record it. They didn't have a drummer at the time thus saving his neighbors a bit of grief. For some reason or other, we all liked the earlier version of '25 Minutes' better than the one Ciaran recorded and used that for one side of the single, with his recording of 'Control Addicts' as the other (1981). It sold its first run of 1000 pretty fast, thanks to John Peel and the relentless fanzine attack of lead vocalist Alex Novak. 500 more were pressed. We had no real distribution, just word of mouth, selling directly to shops like Small Wonder, Rough Trade, Red Rhino. The second single I Said Go / Alien To You (1981) was recorded with added drummer Pete Brownjohn. Plus back at Ciaran's, they cut 'Blow The Back Off It' for The Wonderful World Of Glass Volume One compilation LP (1981). The third single, featuring two long tracks 'In This Century' and 'The Girl With The Disappearing Head', was recorded in a studio in Denmark Street with myself and Ciaran Harte producing (1982). So there you have it really: three singles, a compilation track, plus a solo cassette album by Richard Formby, Outside The Angular Colony (1981), in less time than it's taken putting this CD into production."

John Wall and Mark Durgan return after a lengthy absence with Contrapt. On Contrapt, they've created a fractured sound world woven together from improvisations that took place in the Utterpsalm Studio in London between 2012-15. The seven tracks on Contrapt are an attempt at imposing order, structure, and "expression" without meaning or intention, onto a huge amount of heavily edited sonic material.

Double LP version. Gatefold sleeve. 180 gram vinyl. Hostal La Torre gives no credence to the celebrity culture that exists elsewhere in Ibiza. Once through its doors, the sun is the only star, as La Torre strives to protect the intimacy and magic that Ibiza was built upon. 2016 saw La Torre launch the first edition of their compilation (HLTR 001CD/LP), which went on to be named one of Resident Advisor's top five mixes of 2016. La Torre Ibiza Volumen Dos is compiled by Mark Barrott and Pete Gooding, both integral to La Torre's musical identity and the wider Balearic scene. Pete Gooding holds over three decades of experience as a DJ, including over twenty years sound tracking sunset at the notorious Cafe Mambo in Ibiza, while Mark Barrott has become the face of Balearic, featured in the Guardian, Pitchfork, NPR, and The Fader for his sublime productions and forward thinking International Feel label. The mix includes obscure and much coveted material from the likes of old veterans Vangelis and John Barry, through to a new generation of musical eccentrics such as Lord Of The Isles, Tornado Wallace, and La Torre's own Mark Barrott with an exclusive track. It skirts the outer peripheries of oddities to reimagine what is considered du jour, resulting in a charmed and esteemed choice of music that reflects the audience of La Torre -- a cosmopolitan, original, and radical set from all walks of life. Gooding and Barrott on the release: "Our hope is that even if you haven't yet visited us at La Torre, this collection of music will help you on this journey and if you have shared the majesty of the sunset with us, we hope it will transport you back to that glorious moment when the stillness and feeling of connectedness is so joyous it's almost overwhelming." Tucked away in a secluded spot on the west coast of the island, Hostel La Torre reinvents the Balearic spirit pioneered by Alfredo Fiorito at Amnesia and José Padilla at Café del Mar in the early '80s, carving the footprints of a new and inspiring avant-garde scene in Ibiza's next chapter. Also features: Dip In The Pool, Ishi Vu, Oumou Sangaré, Fuga Ronto, The Durutti Column, Marvin Franklin, True Underground Sound Of Rome, (Don't Ask), Pitto, Dario Domingues & Tupac Amaru, Blue Gas, and Eric Serra.

Adham Zahran shares the wonders of the cosmos through four tracks of seriously funky house music, including a banger of a remix by Chinaski. Four additional tracks are available via the included download code; the eight total tracks form the first full-length album released by House Is OK.

An old hero at INT HQ, Andy Meecham (Bizarre Inc, Big 200, Chicken Lips, etc.) releases his debut for Internasjonal with Vol. 2 of a two-part series entitled 2500. All synth noodles and doodles written, performed, and produced by Andy Meecham, with one rework by Wolf Müller.

One year on since their last venture as Black Spuma on International Feel (IFEEL 057EP, 2016) Fabrizio Mammarella, also known as Telespazio, and Phillip Lauer, one half of Tuff City Kids, are back with the insatiable Orme. Showcasing the pair at their best, this four-tracker is where acid meets emotive melodies and shimmering Italo synths lines. In the words of Phillip Lauer it's where "Balearic vibes, acid love and a lost tape from 1991 merge into pure bliss!" Lauer recently released the self-titled Talamanca System album on International Feel, alongside Gerd Janson and label boss Mark Barrott (IFEEL 063CD/LP, 2017).

The Daphni edit of the Luther Davis Group's disco classic "You Can Be A Star," which Daphni first released on his 2017 FABRICLIVE 93 mix (FABRIC 186CD), backed here with the evergreen original version in all its glory. Hand-silkscreened sleeve by Tazelaar Stevenson.

Finnish visual artist and filmmaker Hannu Karjalainen's music draws inspiration from ambient, drone, modern classical, and dream pop. His first album Worms In My Piano was released in 2007 on Osaka Records and the second album, Hintergarten in 2009 on Simon Scott's Kesh Recordings. A Handful Of Dust Is A Desert, his third album, and the first under his full given name, arriving after a prolonged break. Hannu Karjalainen's association with Karaoke Kalk started with his remix of Dakota Suite's "The End Of Trying Part III" on The Night Just Keeps Coming In (KK 051CD, 2009). A Handful Of Dust Is A Desert opens with the track "Angel" which is a truly heavenly composition reminiscent of Boards Of Canada's finest work. "The Emigrant" makes effective use of sinister synth-lines and delicate glockenspiel patterns to invoke a kind of science-fiction soundtrack atmosphere. Throughout the record, the listener's ears are graced with truly sublime soundscapes and transcendent textures. The title track is actually the shortest tune on the album, but in no way less evocative. Its looped piano melodies are comparable with Susumo Yokota's later recordings in their minimalism and poise. "A Year In A Day" continues to walk the fine line between ambient and electronica, which is one of the albums great virtues: it shows how lively and eventful ambient music can be. Certainly ambient music benefits from having a strong pulse which Karjalainen demonstrates in various tracks on the album. The song "Love Is A Black Lion" features a sample from the afore mentioned Dakota Suite tune The End Of Trying Part III, and therefore somehow closes a circle. This powerfully contemplative album comes to a controlled landing with the majestic "Breaks My Heart She Aria"; another in a long line of mesmerizing drifts, with a floating choral voice delicately enveloped in strings and pitched percussion. A Handful Of Dust Is A Desert is instantly captivating and for lovers of ambient music, it is dream listening. As an artist who trained in photography and is mostly active in the world of visual art, Hannu Karjalainen clearly enjoys a great deal of creative freedom in his music. This is the kind of desert you won't mind getting lost in and you will even take pleasure in roaming through the expansive sonic landscapes and horizons it embodies.

Inaugurated in the summer of 1999, Kompakt's Total compilation series happens to be only slightly older than the 21st century itself -- which makes Total 17 the last instalment before the series hits adulthood. And indeed, the Total class of 2017 exudes a playful abundance few other compilations can match after 15+ years: label veterans and newcomers such as Superpitcher, Weval, Tobias Thomas & Michael Mayer, Chris Klopfer, Jürgen Paape, Voigt & Voigt, Max Scholpp, and Nu U Orchestra provide some of the catchiest material the series has seen to date. Like other Total compilations before it, Total 17 is first and foremost a perfect opportunity to delve into Kompakt's recent back catalog, with the The pièce de résistance, however, is the Total-exclusive content: eight brand new cuts from core Kompakt artists and selected label debutants that will please the collecting connoisseur as well as the ambitious dancefloor activist. Thomas/Mayer's "25" is a charming, bass-happy belter with a distinct Forever Sweet vibe, while Superpitcher teams up with Fantastic Twins for hazy dancefloor ballad "In My Head". Meanwhile, Kompakt's disco king of the hearts Jürgen Paape presents dreamy anthem "Always Disko", manipulating the space-time continuum with reversed vocals and plenty of ballroom glitz. Dutch duo Weval indulge in their expectedly brilliant beatmaking with the slow-burning, emotional "Metazoa", grooving nicely alongside the heartwarming neo-folk house of Chris Klopfer's "Ashamed (Raquet & Stetter Edit)" and Max Scholpp's hypnotic late-night electronica "The Dream". Jörg Burger helms the Nu U Orchestra together with Julienne Dessagne of Saschienne and Fantastic Twins fame, resulting in the flamboyant, guitar-infused pop jam "Ambrosia". And Voigt & Voigt return to their personal brand of psychedelic trance techno minimalism on "Tribute To A Greek God", a fittingly idiosyncratic contribution to the merry band of stand-out tracks collected on Total 17. Double CD version also features: Sebastopol, T.Raumschmiere, Vermont, Sasha, Poliça, Laurent Garnier, Kölsch, Clarian, Demian, Patrice Bäumel, Danny Daze & Shokh, Christian Nielsen, Locked Groove, The Orb, and Dave DK.

Kirk Degiorgio delivers an EP of full-bodied tracks, opening with the headspin stomper of "The Nearness of Flames." "Acid Symphony" weaves an acid line into a rich tapestry, while John Beltran's remix reimagines it with a sunrise touch.

We'll Sea, a splashing, refreshing new series from RSS Disco's Mireia Records. Packed with four summery, gleaming tracks on this first entry. Das Komplex and Manuel Binder (featuring Julian Stetter) dazzle with their grooves and stirring playfulness, while RSS Disco and Conga Fever delivers the soothing companions that will tingle your Balearic sentiments. This kinda love is a once in a lifetime groove. Visually, Mireia is always on the lookout for the extraordinary. We'll Sea Pt. 1 comes on marbled purple vinyl; housed in a heavy clear sleeve; hand-stamped label.

We'll Sea, a splashing, refreshing new series from RSS Disco's Mireia Records. On this second entry, Marcus Worgull (with an edit of Gil Scott-Heron's "I'm Here Now") and Johannes Klingebiel scout out the most euphoric and simultaneously intimate moments of the night. Visually, Mireia is always on the lookout for the extraordinary. We'll Sea Pt. 2 comes on marbled turquoise vinyl; housed in a heavy clear sleeve; hand-stamped label.

This is a profound message from Siriusmo: "Everybody should listen to music, music is great!" And his new single proves his point. With his third album Comic (MONKEY 076CD/LP) just around the corner, these three tracks introduce you to Moritz Friedrich's latest electronic action adventure. The single edit of "Comic" teases the laid-back rave vibes of the album, while "Always Du" is an all too beautiful combination of weird synth grooves and divine piano playing. Same goes for "Where Was I", but here Friedrich takes the track to truly surrealist realms. Quite sophisticated, but also a shit load of fun.

A return to simpler set-ups and times, Antwerp-based musician Dieter Sermeus has started a new chapter in the wake of his acclaimed releases with The Go Find: He is back with a new band called Dieter von Deurne & The Politics, a new formation that sees him revisit and update his indie rocking '90s roots. Harking back to an even earlier band called Orange Black, a project he formed at 15 and which supported bands such as Pavement, Seam, and Stereolab, this self-titled debut is many things at once: a collective reassurance and rocking-off-chest, an ode to wild simplicity and more direct impacts, less irony, and some good old, heart-felt, fuzzy crunch. Inspired by the very bands Sermeus used to open for with Orange Black as well as classics such as Teenage Fanclub, Dinosaur Jr., and The Modern Lovers, it's the kind of album that makes you want to immediately hitch a ride to sunnier climes. Far from being merely nostalgic, it's a timeless road trip recorded by a musician who's always been fond of walking. Jump starting the old engine with "Nuclear Love", the soothing, mending, reassuring quality of this release is apparent after that first wild-haired guitar solo. An album "about these weird times we are living in" and "the Trumpness", as the singer puts it, a lot of its essence is hidden in the lyrics of "Channel": "It's a beautiful life/It's a beautiful lie," goes the punch line before the tune explodes into a wild jam session. At their softest and most well-balanced, there's the pop bliss of "Heart-Shaped Stone" and the hypnotic harmonies of "I'm On Trial", only to be washed away by the straight-forward fun of "The Law Of Misunderstanding". Elsewhere, there's organ-based minimalism ("I Guess I Needed You More") and acoustic confessions ("Jupiter's Moon"), sonic book reviews wrapped in mellow life ruminations ("Knausgard'"), explosive guitar-shredding ecstasy with multiple ignition stages ("Too Much"), until closing track "You" rounds off the album with its melancholy pop innocence. Dieter von Deurne & The Politics' debut album arrives from the land of illuminated, orange freeways and, refreshingly, it doesn't even try to be any kind of new black. Instead, it just oozes that longing for transformation. For never-forgotten hooks presented in a new light. In a way, it's 1993 done à la 2017: ain't no better ointment to ease those current ailments anyway.

The world has changed rapidly since Lali Puna released Our Inventions in 2010 (MORR 098CD/LP), a fact that is also reflected in the band's fifth album, Two Windows. Written and produced over almost two years, these twelve new songs meet those changes head-on both musically and lyrically. Songwriter and singer Valerie Trebeljahr and long-time band members Christian "Taison" Heiß and Christoph Brandner -- Two Windows is the first album recorded after Markus Acher's departure from the band -- opted for a more dancefloor-friendly sound while not neglecting the pop sentiments rooted in Lali Puna's sound. Taking its cues from a brand of music spearheaded by the likes of Caribou, Ada, or even Mount Kimbie, Two Windows sounds lush and focused, balancing the emotional qualities of Trebeljahr's songwriting with energetic rhythms. A tour in South Korea rekindled Trebeljahr's urge to make music after she had focused her career as a journalist as well as on her family. While she was mostly working on new material with Heiß, Trebeljahr also sought out collaborations: Keith Tenniswood (Two Lone Swordsmen) contributes as Radioactive Man; Dntel, aka Jimmy Tamborello, is featured; harpist and Ghostly International alumna Mary Lattimore and experimental artist Midori Hirano (MimiCof) also appear. While Two Windows is thus partly a collaborative effort, it is first and foremost an album about emancipation and a new beginning for Lali Puna. The album explores topics including personal freedom, the presence of surveillance technologies in our lives, and the progressive gentrification of urban centers. Two Windows is not an explicitly political album however. In fact, much like a window, Trebeljahr's lyrics always allow their listeners to look at things from two sides. While they emphasize problems, they also empathize with those who have to put up with them. Trebeljahr has not come to preach, but wants to forge emotional connections. Musically speaking, the lyrical subtleties are reflected in a well-defined sound that likes to shake things up as well. Gender-flipping an old Kings Of Leon tune to present a great piece of music in an entirely different context? You possibly wouldn't expect that on a Lali Puna record, but as Trebeljahr sings herself in "Wonderland": "Cause all things will change / Cause all things must change". Two Windows, an album about emancipation, presents the Lali Puna sound in a different light than before. Glossy artwork and printed inner sleeve.

The artists on Invenciones: La Otra Vanguardia Musical En Latinoamerica 1976-1988 come from an intermediate period between the high-point of diverse artistic currents influenced by the hippie movement and the advent of punk -- a watershed between the expansion of the industry and the emergence of a new DIY distribution system. They also belong to an intermediate period in terms of the development of electroacoustic music labs and the arrival of synthesizers and samples available for mass audiences. They hail from that decisive stage of technological socialization, when small studios and home recording studios were set up. Above all, what these artists have in common is that they are Latin Americans and as such, share the difficulties of belonging to a time in history when ideological polarization resulting from the Cold War was rife, when they would witness complex social processes, military coups, dictatorships, and radicalization, and when the legitimacy of music that spoke about the territory was also disputed. It was a time when native sounds were introduced, either linked to the use of poor or austere technologies or to the local context. Many of the artists on this record have acquired cult status and are key figures in regards to understanding the cultural periods they belong to in their respective countries, but as such they have also been atypical figures and reflect a sensibility that was spreading across Latin America back then: a spirit of experimentation that was redefining musical directions in the region. More than a movement, it was a group of individuals who worked on counterculture projects. Notwithstanding this mosaic of different sounds, several trends can be identified: free use of folk, open compositions, explorations of the boundaries of rock and experimentation with technology. However, imagination is perhaps what connects the artists brought together here for the first time the most. Because all of them needed to imagine a new space, where they could forge a new scene that punk and technology would go on to consolidate. All these artists did things for the first time. They represent the breaking point between clearly defined periods, despite the difficulties and isolation that many suffered when creating their compositions. Features: Manongo Mujica, Banda Dispersa De La Madre Selva, Miguel Flores, Amauta, Autoperro, Malalche, Decibel, Jorge Reyes, Grupo Um, Carlos Da Silveira, Musikautomatika, Quum, Vía Láctea, and Miguel Noya. Includes booklet with liner notes by Luis Alvarado and artist photos.

LP version. The independent, South African record label Mushroom Hour Half Hour present Open Letter To Adoniah, a moving album by talented guitarist and songwriter Sibusile Xaba, who improvises the musical legacy of KwaZulu-Natal into an exciting, genreless future. A lynchpin in South Africa's new generation of jazz musicians, KwaZulu-Natal born guitarist and vocalist Sibusile Xaba has all the makings of an acoustic guitar master. With a vocal style that is part dreamscaping and part ancestral invocation, Xaba divines as opposed to plainly singing. Combined with a guitar style that is rooted in expressive picking, Xaba's music shatters the confines of genre, taking only the fundamentals from mentors such as Madala Kunene and Dr. Philip Tabane and imbuing these with a mythology and improvisational intensity all of his own. Open Letter to Adoniah is an album reverent of life and its connectedness to a higher source. The music emanates from dreams revealed to guitarist Sibusile Xaba over consecutive days. With percussionists Thabang Tabane and Moahanganai Magagula, the trio coalesces both geographic and spiritual influences, hinting at Maskandi (a music style dominant in Xaba's native KwaZulu-Natal) and the improvisational culture of South Africa's jazz avant-garde. Collectively, the musicians remold these influences, situating them within rhythms that span the continent. Thabang Tabane's influence over the project gives it a spiritual sensibility allusive to Malombo which his father Dr. Philip Tabane originated in the late 1960s. Mushroom Hour Half Hour is a Johannesburg based, independent record label and a mobile recording studio that unearths and records unique music from the African continent. Xaba's debut project is Mushroom Hour's first international release. Produced by Thabang Tabane.

Georges Aperghis is one of the most important representatives of contemporary music theater in France. Born in 1945 in Athens as the son of a sculptor and a painter, he moved to Paris in 1963. Following initial autodidactic studies, encounters with the conductor Konstantin Simonovitch, the Ensemble Instrumental Paris and the actress Edith Scob, whom he married in 1965, brought him into contact with Parisian musical circles and the theatrical world there. Especially influential were the works of Pierre Schaeffer, Pierre Henry, Iannis Xenakis, John Cage, and Mauricio Kagel. In 1976, he founded the theatrical group Atelier Théâtre et Musique (ATEM), with which he created and performed over twenty of his own pieces by 1997. He is equally interested in solos and in chamber, orchestral, and vocal ensembles. Georges Aperghis has received numerous prizes and awards, including the Mauricio Kagel Music Prize of the NRW Art Foundation in 2011 as well as the Prize "Frontiers of Knowledge" of the Fundación BBVA in 2015. Performed by Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks featuring Emilio Pomàrico as conductor and Teodoro Anzellotti on accordion.

Matthias Mueller, born in 1966 in Basle, studied clarinet, composition, and piano at the Basle Music Academy. He has been a Professor at the Zurich Academy of the Arts (ZHdK) since 1996. Matthias Mueller is internationally active as a composer, soloist, chamber musician, improviser, producer, pedagogue, researcher, and entrepreneur. As a composer, his oeuvre consists of chamber music, orchestral works, music theater, and electronic music. As an interpreter, he performs the entire clarinet literature and has performed over 100 world premieres in collaboration with composers from all over the world. His research project SABRE, pursued since 2000, has resulted in a company for music technology specializing in sensor technology in the interface between acoustic music and digital technology. Alongside hardware, SABRE also produces software for live-electronics. Michael Collins's dazzling virtuosity and sensitive musicianship have earned him recognition as one of today's most distinguished artists and a leading exponent of his instrument. In recent seasons Collins has become increasingly highly regarded as a conductor and in September 2010 took the position of Principal Conductor of the City of London Sinfonia. In 2007, Collins received the "Royal Philharmonic Society's Instrumentalist of the Year Award", placing him amongst past recipients of the award such as Itzhak Perlman, Mitsuko Uchida, Murray Perahia, and András Schiff. In great demand as a chamber musician, Collins performs with musical colleagues such as the Belcea and Takács Quartets, Martha Argerich, Stephen Hough, Mikhail Pletnev, Lars Vogt, Joshua Bell, and Steven Isserlis. At Wigmore Hall he performed with András Schiff, Piers Lane, and the Endellion String Quartet. Features the world premiere recording Piccolo Concerto Grosso for two basset clarinets and orchestra (2016/17). Personnel: Matthias Mueller - basset clarinet; Michael Collins, basset clarinet; Zurich Chamber Orchestra with Willy Zimmermann as concertmaster.

Camea returns with the third release on her Neverwhere imprint, Vanish. Camea not only captures a timeless micro-house vibe in "Vanish", but she continues to push her sound forward. Up next is Delft imprint boss LA-4A lays down an irresistible 303 break-beat club mix of "Vanish". His dance cut of her vocals over bass driven percussion is a perfect counter piece to the original. Berlin techno legend and Ostgut Ton/Berghain resident Tobias. gives his graceful interpretation. He has reworked the original into a tasteful, dark, spacious eight-minute minimal techno piece, with percolating panning and filters on the vocals.

Double LP version. Includes download code; Edition of 300. Gebrüder Teichmann's third album, Lost On Earth, merges transcultural collaborations and electronic music between 90 and 130bpm. The album was recorded in a multitude of cities and countries including Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Nigeria, Kenya, and Germany and features guest artists Abe Duque (NYC), MC Psychotek (Bulawayo), Wura Samba (Lagos), Santiago Rodrigues and Signal Deluxe (Mexico City), Sasha Perera (Berlin), Max Turner (Noland) and the Kibera based art collective Maasai Mbili. Crafted by jams and recording sessions round the globe, Lost On Earth captures the essence of a rough, pure, and direct mix, highlighting club, hip-hop, African influenced, and deep tracks. Brothers Andi and Hannes Teichmann, aka Gebrüder Teichmann, are electronic musicians, DJs, and cultural activists, and have been rooted in Berlin's techno underground and DIY-culture since the late nineties. The duo have performed at Berlin's premiere clubs including Berghain/Panorama Bar, WMF, Watergate, Bar25, and have hosted regular nights at Suicide Circus Berlin since 2009. Over the years the brothers have collaborated with numerous artists across a variety of genres. Collaborations have included hip hop, contemporary, traditional, and experimental music with collaborators including Ensemble Modern, Decoder Ensemble, Embryo, Joachim Irmler and Gudrun Gut, Foremost Poets, rRoxymore, Teknotika, Jahcoozi and Modeselektor, and their father, multi-instrumentalist Ulrich Teichmann. Andi and Hannes have put together several projects in cooperation with the Goethe-Institute, like Ten-Cities, BLNRB & Soundcamps in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Mexico, and established the intercultural electro ensembles Karachi Files (Pakistan/Europe), BLNRB (Nairobi/Berlin), and Mondmaschine (Mexican/Central America/Europe). With their label Noland they are compressing this diversity. Their musical activities, from DJing, giving workshops, and playing live sets, have taken them to over 60 countries as far as Afghanistan, Honduras, Sibiria, and Angola. Home in Berlin, they've been curating several festivals, such as the "From Inside To Way Out" at HAU Hebbel Am Ufer, the African Music Convention 2014, and parts of the Worldtronics Festival at Haus der Kulturen der Welt. Lost On Earth marks the first proper studio album Gebrüder Teichmann since 2011's They Made Us Do It (FEST 042CD). Lost On Earth also features: Amman Mushtaq, Eviltapes, Daniel Goldaracena, Ammara Brown, Flexxo, Maasai Mbili, Oren Gerlitz, and Fred Britzger.

Drums Off Chaos was one of the central and on-going projects of the recently deceased drummer Jaki Liebezeit (CAN). In the early 1980s, he had initiated a loose collective of drummers, who created a rhythmic concept on the basis of simple, strictly binding codes that enabled expansive improvisations. Over the years, the ensemble refined its collaboration to repetitive patterns and their variations. Liebezeit, with colleagues Reiner Linke, Maf Retter, and Manos Tsangaris, earmarked some tracks for imminent release on vinyl and CD -- on different compilations. Mastered by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering.

Delphine Dora and Mocke present Le Corps Défendant on Okraïna. Ned Netherwood of Was Ist Das? on the release: "There is something special about when artists like these collaborate. Two independent talents, both completely self-sufficient choosing to come together and see what happens, to let the muses mingle and share the results with the rest of us. What we have here, however, is not some quick jam caught on tape but a long distance collaboration carefully put together over three years. The result is something that gives us a broad overview of the two talents spotlighted here, showcasing many different moods, sounds and styles. Created like an exquisite corpse story they sent each other music to work on with no instructions or suggestions, just some inspiring mix tapes of everyone from Duke Ellington to Harry Partch. They clearly found their way. As well as her own music (which ended up on Pitchfork's best of 2015 list), Delphine runs the excellent Wild Silence record label. As well as being a solo artist, Mocke has played with the likes of Arlt, Holden and Midget! On this record, Mocke plays the guitar and Delphine sings and plays everything else. He's one hell of a guitar player, bringing to mind Loren Connors, John Fahey and anyone who ever took a six string and mastered it their own damn way. Delphine sings sweetly, sometimes from classic texts or as a glossolalia (divinely expressing without words), though to a non-French speaker you would swear was some lost classic pop song reinterpreted in her own style. Both Delphine and Mocke are originally from Paris but both have long since left, Mocke for Brussels and Delphine for the deepest French countryside. That difference can be found in their music. Mocke's music is urbane with a touch of inner-city paranoia. Delphine's music always sounds isolated in a big landscape. They complement each other as opposites. Like all Okraïna releases, the stunning artwork is by Gwénola Carrère and I can't think of anyone better suited to try and encapsulate this stunningly varied and vivid album. The title does not translate to English as it is a poetic corruption of a common phrase. I think something similar happened to common music on this album." Personnel: Delphine Dora: voice, piano, prepared piano, keyboards, celesta, glockenspiel, piano, guitar strings, violin, shruti box, field recordings, objects; Mocke - guitar.

Repressed. Todd Terje continues to buck trends and shuck conventions, presenting here two tip-top reworks of an original that remains unreleased at the time of this release. Four Tet's remix picks out a particularly jazzy path to a distant dancefloor dimension, with a surge of spectral arps, swelling sine waves, shuffling percussion, and the sweet syncopation of off-beat piano, before the Text founder unleashes a booming bassline. Prins Thomas's remix evokes vintage R&S, Dutch electro, and Sheffield bass, pairing an infectious breakbeat with full-bodied subs and a particularly X-rated bassline while fluttering keys blur into the nebulous swirl of dopamine-drenched vocals.

Repressed. Miracle Steps (Music from the Fourth World 1983 - 2017) has been on Optimo Music's to-do list for ages, but it was only when Twitch and Glasgow's Fergus Clark started crossing swords over what actually constituted "Fourth World" music that the project really got going. Twitch decided that co-compiling the release with someone who had a slightly different take on things might make for a more interesting finished product, and so it came to pass that a cohesively thrilling compilation quickly materialized as each of them drew from a wealth of different artists and eras. For the uninitiated, here's an extract from Fergus Clark's sleeve notes honing in on how the term "Fourth World" (an idea conjured up by Jon Hassell in the early '80s) might be defined: "What we have attempted to gather across this compilation is a body of work which we feel directly resonates with both the literal definition of 'Fourth World' music and indeed our own interpretation of this unique sonic vision; from the work of the late Jorge Reyes, a Mexican musician who combined pre-Hispanic instruments with synthesizers and digital sampling, through to the work of organic ambient ensemble O Yuki Conjugate. There are tracks which utilize custom, home-made instruments and there are tracks built from scratch using the latest in digital technology, but the undercurrent tying each piece together is this deeply personal feeling of intrigue and mysterious elation. Strange and unparalleled, this feeling manages to eschew geographic borders and rigid genre movements in favor of something which manages to evoke an inner sanctum, a musical private place for both reflection and assessment. This is music grounded in nor the past nor the present, music which manages to sound futuristic yet remarkably nostalgic." JD Twitch is one half of Glasgow's Optimo (Espacio) and runs the Optimo Music and Optimo Trax labels. Fergus Clark is a writer, occasional DJ, and avid music fan. He is a founding member of the music and art collective 12th Isle. Housed in a gatefold sleeve designed by the redoubtable Glasgow based visual artists Al White and Jamie Johnson. Also features: Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe & Ariel Kalma, Iona Fortune, X.Y.R., Jon Keliehor, David Cunningham, Larry Chernicoff, Sussan Deyhim & Richard Horowitz, Jon Hassell, Vulgata, Afro-Disiak, Rapoon, and Javier Segura.

Things are gettin' faster and more toolish on the second Osmund Audio release. Alexander Brandl's Second EP is made for the dancefloor. His drawing board is the modular synth, that spat out three massive groovers with chords from outer space, super thick basslines, and a raw and reduced sound design with roughly edited drums.

Alpha is Etapp Kyle's first full Ostgut Ton EP. "Alpha" establishes a cosmic theme from the get go, with chord swells and a whirring, phasing space-wind panning. The rhythmic interplay between hi-hats and haled-out rimshots guide the track through space. "Quantum" strips the voyage down to a glowing, unwavering arpeggiated synth line, interspersed with twisted, high-pitched bells and updated 909- esque snare patters. On "Source", hats and an atmospheric two chord progression lay the foundation for an interlocking array of rhythms. "Ritual" things take a different turn entirely, as a dirge-like drone resounds across a colossal sonic expanse.

Even eternity has to be measured and that's why it is time to celebrate ten years of Permanent Vacation with a big fat anniversary compilation. A lot has happened since Tom Bioly and Benjamin Fröhlich dusted off the mirror balls in Munich. Since the 1970s, the city always had a reputation for being one of the world's disco capitals and Permanent Vacation took good care of this precious heritage being partly responsible for the new found love of disco music and its variations such as Balearic, cosmic, krautrock or protohouse. Back then Tom, who for several years had been working in the music business, was a regular at Play Records that was run by Benjamin, who had also been busy as a DJ and party promoter. Soon they became friends and discovered their astoundingly similar taste in music. Their first release, a compilation of the same name, Permanent Vacation, was celebrated as "razor-sharp, pulsating, pornographic, all fuses opening crazy pop" by one of Germany's leading daily newspaper, Süddeutsche Zeitung. Permanent Vacation has since become one of the flagships of the new movement and had several genre-defining hits. To reduce Permanent Vacation to disco and Balearic wouldn't do justice to the label's ever-growing catalog. Bioly and Fröhlich deem disco a form of mentality anyway, defying all too fixed and earnest paradigms of dance music. This is why the catalog also comprises library music compilations, krautrock, soundtracks of horror flicks, electro, vocoder poetry, cheerful party anthems, oddball house, frequent subversions of any categorization, blissful pop, folky house, electronica, and cinematic soundscapes. Permanent Vacation remains a solid constant in the obscure jungle of modern dance music. For this compilation, Benjamin Fröhlich and Tom Bioly were able to gather all the regular vacationers (including themselves) and some special guests, all of whom contributed exclusives. The result features 16 new, unreleased, and exclusive tracks that capture the whole Permanent Vacation sound spectrum. Features: Red Axes, John Talabot, TB & Bostro Pesopeo, Pional, Lake People, Daniel Bortz, Benjamin Fröhlich, Woolfy Vs. Projections, Mano Le Tough, Lord Of The Isles, Tensnake, Tuff City Kids, Joakim, The Drifter, Lauer, New Jackson, and Margie Jean Lewis. Double CD version includes 12-page booklet.

Four LP version. Includes a bonus track by Joakim "Camino De La Luna (Dub Version)"; Includes download code. Even eternity has to be measured and that's why it is time to celebrate ten years of Permanent Vacation with a big fat anniversary compilation. A lot has happened since Tom Bioly and Benjamin Fröhlich dusted off the mirror balls in Munich. Since the 1970s, the city always had a reputation for being one of the world's disco capitals and Permanent Vacation took good care of this precious heritage being partly responsible for the new found love of disco music and its variations such as Balearic, cosmic, krautrock or protohouse. Back then Tom, who for several years had been working in the music business, was a regular at Play Records that was run by Benjamin, who had also been busy as a DJ and party promoter. Soon they became friends and discovered their astoundingly similar taste in music. Their first release, a compilation of the same name, Permanent Vacation, was celebrated as "razor-sharp, pulsating, pornographic, all fuses opening crazy pop" by one of Germany's leading daily newspaper, Süddeutsche Zeitung. Permanent Vacation has since become one of the flagships of the new movement and had several genre-defining hits. To reduce Permanent Vacation to disco and Balearic wouldn't do justice to the label's ever-growing catalog. Bioly and Fröhlich deem disco a form of mentality anyway, defying all too fixed and earnest paradigms of dance music. This is why the catalog also comprises library music compilations, krautrock, soundtracks of horror flicks, electro, vocoder poetry, cheerful party anthems, oddball house, frequent subversions of any categorization, blissful pop, folky house, electronica, and cinematic soundscapes. Permanent Vacation remains a solid constant in the obscure jungle of modern dance music. For this compilation, Benjamin Fröhlich and Tom Bioly were able to gather all the regular vacationers (including themselves) and some special guests, all of whom contributed exclusives. The result features 16 new, unreleased, and exclusive tracks that capture the whole Permanent Vacation sound spectrum. Features: Red Axes, John Talabot, TB & Bostro Pesopeo, Pional, Lake People, Daniel Bortz, Benjamin Fröhlich, Woolfy Vs. Projections, Mano Le Tough, Lord Of The Isles, Tensnake, Tuff City Kids, Joakim, The Drifter, Lauer, New Jackson, and Margie Jean Lewis.

Visual artist and multi-instrumentalist Olin Caprison composes and performs all aspects of the Violence project. Compositionally, each of the songs fearlessly disrupts any notions of genre division, creating a universe that is equal parts at-home in the realms of noise, rap, industrial, and the more extreme deviations of metal. Lyrically, Violence meditates on the oppressive nature of history, and explores ideas of archetypal memory and the stigmas which come with those memories. Caprison on the project: "My palette consists of the shattered micro-architecture of an unprejudiced, undiscerning, cosmopolitan, anti-culture massive music archive. A piece of this, a piece of that. The shattered remains of the 'genre', utilizing the mythopoeia behind each cultural movement to fight for meaning. This music is a struggle. It is a struggle from within this anti-history vacuum, a struggle against the all-embracing, multicultural, ahistorical ecosystem of contemporary music that renders all hierarchies impotent and null."

Quintessentials offer a slice of South American music from Soul Of Hex. Hailing from Tijuana, Soul Of Hex (Sebastien Vorhaus) has a rich, nuanced, and grainy style with an authenticity that's closer in sound to vintage Detroit or New York pastures, despite his Mexican heritage. Busy DJing, producing, and running his own label Vicario LTD, Soul Of Hex is a driving force in the Mexican scene. Helipop EP offers different styles, like a downbeat intro, a deep bass-y rough house cut ("Helipop"), plus two back to old-school rave/warehouse tunes not afraid to use uplifting pianos, catchy vocals, and deep basslines.

A re-release of Jazz Into Rocksteady & Reggae by Hot & Rich, originally released in 2004. The tracks feature horn instrumentals played over original 1967-68 rocksteady and early reggae rhythms from Lynn Taitt & The Jets and Beverley's All Stars. All rhythms were recorded in Jamaica and supplied through the courtesy of Derrick Morgan. Hot & Rich are Bob "Hot Dog" Ormrod and his son, Richard. With over 50 years of musical experience between them, they play everything, from traditional to free jazz, blues, ska, reggae, Latin, calypso, mento and South African music, and bring all of these influences to this album. All tracks on this re-release have been re-mixed and re-mastered by Alien Dread at AD Studio. Includes an additional six tracks not featured on the original release.

Unearth is the first solo recording from Australian born, Berlin based composer and drummer Tony Buck in 15 years. Many would recognize Buck from his work with the iconic Australia avant trio The Necks. His history as a player however reaches much further than this engagement. Over the past few decades, Tony has cultivated a language that escapes easy categorization. With Unearth, he delivers his most accomplished solo composition. Built across several years, the record is the culmination of his approaches to intensive percussive, pulse, and explorations in compositional density. The architecture of this work is framed unsurprisingly around a core of percussion but also draws heavily on Buck's less known interests in guitar, synthesizer, and field recordings. These elements coalesce, haunting one another in an evasive manner that is inexorable, creating a slow moving dialogue of extreme dynamic interchange. Operating at a pace not dissimilar to what one might expect from a recording by The Necks, Unearth explores a gradual, swelling sound mass, teeming with details, cast across long dynamic arcs. The piece represents an exploration of and meditation on, the duality and paradox of time itself. Moments of fragile and infinitesimal sounds contrast with droning, dense layers; melodic and harmonic elements play out against backgrounds of texture and noise. The piece's elements operate together to render an impressionistic multiverse of worlds, unfolding and wrapping themselves around one another. The work exists as a hierarchical sound mass; a sedimentary layering of intensities, unearthed and unearthly.Tony Buck is regarded as one of Australia's most creative and adventurous exports. Following studies and early experience in Australia he spent two years in Japan, where he formed PERIL with Otomo Yoshihide and Kato Hideki before relocating to Europe in the mid-nineties. He has since collaborated with most of the international improvisation and new music community and he has performed at major festivals and venues around the world. He has been involved in collaborations, performing or recording, with artists as diverse as Brian Eno, David Sylvian, Ilan Volov, John Surman, Ned Rothenberg, Lee Renaldo, Karl Hyde (Underworld), John Zorn, and Barre Phillips.

Toot toot, beep beep, out of the way! KiNK's taster for his forthcoming album on Running Back is here. "Perth" is a prime-example of the Bulgarian producer's unstoppable good times ware. Taken from "Playground", the three versions here are dripping with grease. Split between the original, a chord mix and a beat version, it's all you ever wanted from a single. Perfect house music for techno DJs and techno music for disco DJs.

Double LP version. Includes poster and download code. Running Back will mark its fifteenth anniversary with the release of its first label compilation, the Running Back Mastermix. As befitting the celebration of a landmark year in the life of Gerd Janson's widely adored imprint, Janson has invited one of house music's original and greatest proponents of the mastermix, New York City's Tony Humphries, to curate and mix the first edition. The Mastermix is a timely reminder of what has made Running Back endure and remain at the top of many house music fans' favorite label lists for over a decade. Beginning with Todd Terje's blockbuster "Ragysh" and traversing tracks from across the label's history, it includes contributions from long time label regulars, alongside more recent additions and reminders of some of Running Back's best reissues. Label mainstays Tiger & Woods, Matthew Styles, Redshape, and Leon Vynehall all appear, alongside Mr G, Paul Woolford and recent breakthrough artists Shan, Jex, and Roy Camanchero. The choice of Tony Humphries to mix the compilation is a significant one. Having received his break in the early '80s as an understudy for the legendary Shep Pettibone's Kiss FM show, Humphries went on to become one of the defining DJs of house music's formative years with his residency at New Jersey's Club Zanzibar and London's Ministry of Sound. His previous mixes illustrate his continuing ability to bridge dance music's past and present, with prior contributions to Resident Advisor and Fabric's respective series in addition to label compilations for King Street Sounds and West End Records. Tony Humphries on the release: "It's truly an honor to partake in this special anniversary Running Back imprint. Gerd Janson's extraordinary palette of releases are unique -- it was a privilege to be involved with this project." Double LP version is unmixed and features a handful of rare and exclusive cuts. Tiger & Woods's "Don't Hesitate" appears on vinyl for the first time, while the Dixon edit of Precious System's anthem "The Voice From Planet Love" will be available on wax again after only appearing on a super limited 12" run the first time around. LP version also features: Todd Terje, Precious System, Leon Vynehall, Mr. G, and Paul Woolford.

"Recorded in 1987 in tribute to their lost friend and collaborator Philip 'Snakefinger' Lithman who died of a heart attack while on tour with his band, The Vestal Virgins. This piece was performed live one time, at a Snakefinger wake in San Francisco. The studio version was originally released as a fan club only, limited edition CD. This LP includes both the studio version and the live version and has been remastered for vinyl. This is a limited edition of only 300 copies on cyan blue vinyl."

This is the second 12" from Taken, the duo effort of Elias Landberg and Nihad Tule. The duo has done a local show at Under Bron in Stockholm as well as Herrensauna in Berlin, this new EP sounds is as inspired and fresh as their live sets, setting the course straight away. The reminiscent sounds of techno's adolescence goes everything but unnoticed as the reduced and powerful "Cluster" on the A side showcases Taken's ambitions. Going into deeper territories, the B side "Elysia" almost smells of strobes and smoke machines for the eye-opening moments of a proper party.

What's this unidentified vinyl object? After Nuno Dos Santos' striking Trigonometry Of Love EP (SOHASO 011EP), Something Happening Somewhere presents a killer four track remix pack that let's others retell the story in their own way. Far Out Radio Systems, Fader From Borneo, Mark Du Mosch, and Polynation are all presenting their version on an exclusive "white label". Containing a special silkscreen printed remix of the original artwork, every edition of this one is truly unique and a collector's item to behold.

Cosmin TRG returns to Sportiv with two tracks of stark, angular beauty. "Afterburn" harks back to '90s techno of the hyperkinetic variety, in the vein of Regis's seminal Gymnastics (DNLP 002R-LP). The obsessive vocal mantra adds to its hypnotic, frantic rhythm. "Electra" is on a trance-inducing mission, with its cavernous 808 kick carried by a pulsating bassline and eerie percussion.

After showcasing his knack for emotive productions via various EPs throughout his career, the Swiss artist Several Definitions now reveals his first full-length album. It should come as no surprise that the artist found familiarity in what he calls the "Berlin style" of electronic music and notably, that of Oliver Koletzki's Stil vor Talent. Reborn After The Road is an intense and emotional affair, consisting of 14 tracks crafted using field and live recordings, switching between analog and digital to mould a sonic atmosphere that emblazons the artist's core ethos. Although the personal experience that sparked the inspiration for the LP is far from pleasant, Several Definitions' style is audibly resolute. "Reborn After The Road", the album's eponymous track, creates a fitting intro for the healing process that is to follow. Its airy pads and majestic strings sonically stand at the epicenter of the expressive album. Several Definitions continues to explore these sounds on vaporous slices like "Pontcéard 32" or the more acidical "Last Breath". The mellifluous, feminine vocals of LaMeduza on "Learn To Feel" and "Her", as well as Spanish singer Goldsun's crooner talents on the introspective "Trust", on the other hand, showcase Several Definitions' ability to work the human voice into his musical explorations. Taking introspection one step further towards darker realms, "Senelity" then feels like a rite of passage into the deeper and more intense segment at the album's core. "Over You" briefly signals a turning point, with its alarm-like synths and grave leads, which is then followed by the glitchy resistance on "Modular Spaces". "The Escape" presents itself as a natural occurrence after the string of turbulent, sometimes conflicting feelings -- it is a final attempt at evading the depths of animosity. Next, "Dancing With The Valkyrie" comes in as a determined resolution, introducing a new wave of more enduring, complacent moods, also evident on "Help" and "Don't Stop To Fall". Preparing the exit by way of straight-to-the-point techno, "Target Topic" rolls into "Her", the final piece of the emotional puzzle. Conceptually, Reborn After The Road is the sonic vessel for a cathartic process, conjuring up atmospheres reminiscing of different phases in life: childhood, the strength of unconditional love, and the inevitable sorrow that accompanies death. The humanity of the emotions on show explains the music's universal appeal, as Several Definitions offers the listener a glimpse into an artistic healing process.

Recorded in early 2015 and originally released as a micro edition cassette on World News Records, No Language is the debut collection of songs by Melbourne's Caroline No. The group's unique, beguiling sound sits somewhere between archetypal Dunedin pop and languorous, textural improvisation. No Language was spontaneously recorded with one microphone and the serendipity of the session proves tactile in the listening experience. Heavily reverbed laughter, coughing, fits, and starts with various processing equipment contribute wonderfully to the ephemeral nature of the music. On "Up To Downtown", vocalist Caroline Kennedy implores the band to "just try to stay in time" before lurching into what, against all odds, turns out to be a remarkably anthemic earworm of a pop song. The closer, "Roomer", incorporates granular processing (perhaps a pedal someone forgot they'd brought to the session) to endearing and startling effect. Ultimately, No Language is a marvelous balancing act of a record, drawing from pop, free improv, and psychedelia in equal parts to arrive at something timeless. Students of Decay is a record label based out of Cincinnati, Ohio, run by Alex Cobb. Active since 2005, the label has published a wide range of ambient, drone, micro-sound, and electronic recordings, on a variety of formats. Includes download code; Edition of 300.

Complete Music For Films 1960-1984 is a three-CD set that gathers Luc Ferrari's complete works for films from 1960-1984, including electronic pieces, concrete music made in GRM, and some hybrids including traditional instruments. Very rare pieces, most of which are unpublished (including collaborations with Jean Cocteau and Jean Tinguely), are presented here for the first time, offering a complete scope of the innovative 20th century composer's foray into film music. Complete Music For Films 1960-1984 is released as a part of Sub Rosa's Early Electronic series. Includes two texts by Philippe Langlois, author of Les Cloches d'Atlantis (2012), and Guillaume Contré, rare photograms from films, and some handwritten notes by Ferrari himself.

Delakeyz is Swiss producer Melodiesinfonie's moniker when taking a journey into more house-y realms. On this voyage, he explores his musical roots in three percussive-driven belters that still manage to maintain the subtle melodic textures that everybody loves from Melodiesinfonie's work. Manchester's own Contours picks up the more gentle tone of the original in his remix of "Walkingfree" while Moony Me's interpretation of "Our Roots" is a full-fledged club heater.

Robert Sotelo is the nom de plume of Andrew Doig, a 36-year-old serial musician originally from Peterborough. Andrew's middle name is Robert, whilst Sotelo is his mother's maiden name. Using this alter ego he's been able to write and record the twelve songs that make up his debut solo record Cusp. Sotelo plays every instrument on the album and recorded and edited it with long-term friend John Hannon throughout 2016 at No Studios in Rayleigh, Essex. Sotelo's verdant world of sound is at once intimate, choosing to build songs up from ambitious layers of instrumentation into miniature psych pop overtures of genuine sincerity of feeling. Very much grounded in that particular forward-facing strain of mid-60s rock that edged towards Sgt. Pepper, Sotelo's music owes as much to Davies and McCartney's unashamed belief in melody as it does to the uncertainty and confusion that comes with mid-thirties existentialism. With Cusp, Sotelo has created a vast tapestry of songs that stand up and sound afresh. "Bring Back The Love" is a dream-swept ballad of expansive vocal refrains and pools of spidery guitar contemplation. "Marinade" is a song about having no money wrapped up in a hypnotic cycle of chiming bittersweet guitars and gentle keyboard blushes. "Bronte Paths" is another homespun wonder-pop moment, sounding more like a rediscovered gem than a contemporary song. Many of the tracks on Cusp deal with matters of imbalance in Sotelo's life like when his North London flat fell into disrepair before being swallowed up by property developers ("Tenancy Is Up"). In fact, "Alan Keay Is Fit For Work" is directly drawn from his experiences in support work of a man he represented amid the recent benefits debacle. "Version" is a sublimely panoramic number about spending too much time trying to write songs on your own and how it affects your relationships. "Dr Parsley" is a complex song of hope rooted in an unsure present, its subtle use of percussion and sumptuous vocal helping to guide listeners. The album closes suitably with "Brother You're Complicated" a piano-driven high note from the record, lush with choirs of voices and brushed drum flourishes. Cusp is about loss, recovery and delight in starting anew, finding out the future isn't just a continuation. Cover art by Daniel Sean Kelly. Comes on 180 gram transparent vinyl; Housed in matte-finish sleeve; Edition of 500.

"Referred to an as 'American Iconoclast' by the New York Times, Roscoe Mitchell is an internationally recognized saxophonist, composer, and founder of the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Discussions Orchestra is derived from several musical improvisations found on Roscoe Mitchell's Conversations with Kikanju Baku and Craig Taborn. The songs have been transcribed and performed by a twenty piece orchestra."

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